


Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow

by notkingyet



Category: Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
Genre: Blood and Gore, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:11:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notkingyet/pseuds/notkingyet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puck is wounded in the course of his duties. Fortunately for him, Oberon has both the means and the inclination to fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smileodon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileodon/gifts).



> Thanks to Isis and anon for beta-reading.

Puck was late.

This was not an unheard-of state of affairs, but Oberon was displeased nonetheless. The dawdling sprite would have to provide an excellent excuse when he finally arrived. Or a diverting one. Even the poorest reason for failure could become a tale worth listening to when it tripped off Puck's tongue. But he had sworn to return to his king's side by dawn, and as it now neared mid-day, Oberon's patience wore thin.

When a busy little pixie, barely taller than Oberon's palm was wide, buzzed in his ear and told him the Puck had been sighted at the border of their territory, Oberon grew yet more impatient. He sent the pixie back out to collect further intelligence on the reason for Puck's procrastination.

An hour later, the pixie returned to report that Puck had not moved even a quarter mile closer in the interval. Enraged by the delay, Oberon set forth to teach Puck a lesson in expedience. He flew from his throne of thorns on a draught of wind that left frost on the trunk of every tree he passed and blighted the buds of their new spring leaves. The journey that had taken the pixie an hour took him not even a tenth of that time.

He came upon the Puck in a copse of trees on the banks of a muddy little brook. The sprite lay half-curled like a sleeping cat at the base of a willow tree, sheltered by its drooping branches and well-hid by a surrounding cluster of reeds. Oberon landed on his feet under the willow's canopy and loomed over Puck, arms crossed.

"Robin," he said, the name coming out as a growl.

Puck did not stir.

Having no patience for jests at his expense, Oberon called out for Puck again, and prodded at the sprite's ribs with the toe of his boot for good measure. This time, Puck groaned, his whole body flinching away from the contact. 

It seemed the sprite was in a drunken stupor. Oberon scowled. His boot came out again, this time to flip the sprite onto his back.

Puck gave a choked-off shout and a full-bodied spasm, his spine contorting as it hit the dirt, legs kicking out and tangling in the weeds of the riverbank. The source of his pain was obvious; from his collar to his navel, seven arrows stuck at random in his flesh. His whole front was coated crimson.

Oberon's first reaction was a literal gust of rage, the willow's branches flying outward and its trunk groaning with the effort of staying upright. Whatever idiot faery had taken it upon themselves to fill his servant with elfshot, they would suffer greatly. 

In the wake of this sudden gale, Puck shuddered and made an aborted attempt to curl in on himself again.

Oberon checked his temper and knelt beside the semiconscious sprite. He said Puck's name once more, this time in a whisper. Bloodshot eyes blinked open and squinted immediately against the agony of wakefulness.

"Well met, my master," Puck said, his voice half groan despite the attempt at a smile that twisted his features into a grimace.

"What happened?" said Oberon.

"Had a notion to become a hedgehog." Puck tried to laugh through the blood that bubbled out from between his lips. "Though I believe I may have gotten it back-to-front."

"Hush," Oberon commanded, and Puck fell silent with what Oberon thought might have been a sigh of relief. The sigh became a whimper as Oberon lightly touched the arrow nearest his heart. Ignoring his servant's increasingly desperate choked whines, he wrapped his fingers securely around the shaft, braced his other hand on Puck's shoulder, and pulled.

The arrow came free as cleanly as anyone might have reasonably expected, which wasn't very cleanly at all. Blood trailed after the arrowhead in an arc, spattering over Oberon and Puck both. Puck screamed, naturally, and Oberon pressed his palm over the gushing wound and smothered Puck's cry with an ungentle kiss.

The scream had faded to a breathless, tearful gasp by the time Oberon pulled away. He lifted his hand from Puck's chest and raised an eyebrow in astonishment at what he found there. The wound, which should have healed once the offending object was removed, remained.

Puck's lips trembled as he tried to form the words to explain the anomaly. A wave of blood poured from the hole in his chest with every forced exhale. His efforts, though valiant, were unnecessary. Oberon gave the arrow a closer examination. The shaft was common ash, but the head gave off a heavy, rank smell. He pricked his finger on its tip and hissed when the wound burned as well as stung. Iron. This was not the action of any wayward faery, but of mortal men. Small wonder Puck hadn't been able to tend his injuries himself. Small wonder he'd survived at all.

Looking back to the Puck's ashen face, Oberon realized his favorite minion's survival remained in question.

Unacceptable.

A snap of royal fingers, a few orders barked into the ether, and both servants and supplies were at his beck and call. Under normal circumstances the King's touch alone should have been enough to heal any faery's hurts, but iron was another matter entirely.

A hundred fey hands held Puck still as Oberon plucked the arrows from his flesh, one by one. As he did so, he flushed each wound with honey and wine, the bleeding staunched with cobwebs. Pixies and brownies brought in stolen scraps of linen for bandages.

The process, which should have taken moments, lasted for long hours, well past nightfall. Puck wandered in and out of consciousness throughout. During the brief times he was awake, Oberon fed him rose petals and heart's ease, dropping the petals into his mouth and bidding him to chew. The King's hands did not tremble, despite his fury at whoever had done this to his most prized servant, and his fear that all his work to save him might still be in vain.

At last, near dawn, it was done. Washed, bandaged, and warm, Puck drifted off into what looked to be a hazy reverie, a smile on his lips, which were rosy again at last. Oberon carefully curled his own body around his servant's smaller form, one arm behind Puck's head. He let his free hand hover for a moment, uncertain where to place it so as to cause Puck the least pain, then settled on brushing Puck's pale cheek with his knuckles to bring some color back to them. Puck sighed in his sleep and wriggled closer to his King. Oberon laid a kiss on Puck's temple and put aside his fear and rage for the moment to join his minion in dreams.

The King awoke to an arm slapped across his chest, shoving him away. Blinking furiously to banish the sleep from his eyes, he saw that the offending limb belonged to Puck, feverish now and thrashing wildly.

Vines grew up from the earth to tie down Puck's limbs while other servants brought forth cool moss and cold water. Oberon waited patiently as the semi-conscious sprite fought against his bonds. At last Puck fell back, panting with exertion, muscles still spasming futilely. Oberon bathed Puck's burning skin and poured drink down his parched throat. Puck regained his full awareness for a few moments during this process, but lacked the strength to do much more than gaze blearily up at his King and mumble apologies and gratitudes. Oberon murmured reassurances in return, too low for any but Puck's pointed ears to hear.

Puck drifted off again, his top half cradled in his lord's lap. Oberon ran his fingers through the sprite's tangled mane, tying and un-tying knots in the curls. 

Over the course of the day and on into the night Puck slept. By the time he woke his fever had broken entirely. At last he was able to tell his lord what had happened: on his way back from Titania's court, he'd come across a mortal wedding, and the call to mischief had proved too much for the sprite to resist.

"And so you debauched the bride," Oberon guessed, his tone flat.

"And the groom," said Puck, leaning his head against Oberon's broad chest and looking down at his own twiddling fingers as he spoke.

"Naturally," said Oberon. "After all, why leave the job half-done?"

"A third, really," said Puck. "Two-thirds, once the groom was in on it."

"The final piece being...?"

"Why the priest, of course," said Puck, looking up at his king with a smile that wasn't quite as broad as Oberon remembered.

"Of course," Oberon echoed, the syllables rumbling through his ribcage and reverberating in Puck's ear.

"They took especial offense at that, once we'd been discovered," said Puck.

"In the church itself?"

"Sadly, no. Even I can't get a man of the cloth to ecstasy in a church. There was a very accommodating barn not far off. The four of us were all quite happy there until the gathered dearly beloved grew impatient and went looking for the wedding party."

"Ah. And thus the arrows?"

"No, thus the attempted burning. Apparently one is supposed to scream rather than laugh when being consumed by purifying flame." Puck shrugged. "When that failed, then came the arrows, which, as you can see, were somewhat more successful."

"All this over a wedding," Oberon mused, lightly brushing his fingers over Puck's still-warm forehead.

"Well, that and the whole turning-the-sacramental-wine-back-to-water thing," said Puck with an illustrative wave of his hand.

Oberon raised a disapproving eyebrow. Puck hung his head in a parody of shame.

"Where, precisely, did this wedding take place?" said Oberon.

Puck looked up again, a split-second flicker of fear in his eyes. Something of Oberon's intention for vengeance must have shown in his visage; with some effort, he softened an expression he hadn't realized had hardened. Puck responded with a small, sheepish smile.

"It's no fault of the newlyweds," he said. "Nor the priest. They all showed me a lovely time."

"The village, Puck," said Oberon. "Name it."

With a petulant sigh, Puck pronounced it. Oberon made a note to blight its fields.

"And the task I gave you?" said Oberon.

"Oh," said Puck, as though he had forgotten. Oberon knew no such thing had occurred. "Yes. Your ladyship will meet you o' Mayday, provided you come in good faith and employ no tricks. It would seem she's still mistrustful after the Midsummer incident."

"I cannot imagine why," Oberon murmured. 

Silence grew around them, Puck being too tired to converse for long. In place of words, Oberon ran his fingers through Puck's hair once more. Puck purred and leaned into the touch. Oberon allowed himself a small smile and let his hands roam further, one cupping the back of Puck's head and gently rubbing his scalp while the other drifted down to brush his cheek and jaw. Puck sighed happily at this, but whined a little in protest as Oberon lifted him off his chest and set him down upon the mossy bed.

The sprite was not bereft of his King's touch for long; Oberon loomed over him and ran his hands down Puck's sides, the rough pads of his fingers tickling Puck's newly-visible ribs. A disquieting sight for the King, but a few more nights of rest and feasting would restore Puck's lean musculature. Oberon's touch became even gentler as he began to examine Puck's wounds, carefully peeling back the bandages to see what, if any, of the damage had healed. 

Despite Oberon's care, Puck winced at this, and bit off a yelp when Oberon prodded the bruising flesh around a particular hole in his side. Oberon apologized with a kiss that began at Puck's temple and followed the path his fingers had taken earlier, down Puck's cheek and jaw to his collar and chest before Oberon kissed the wound itself. Under his lips, it healed, scarring in the space of a wink and then covering over with new skin. Puck's moan of pain turned to one of relief and ended in a sigh.

Oberon kissed each of Puck's wounds in turn. Puck now arched up towards his caresses rather than flinching away, a change Oberon heartily approved of. When he was done, Puck's skin had returned to its usual color, dark with sun and deep with blood. 

His kisses had revived something else, as well. He cast a half-lidded glance down at Puck's groin before raising an eyebrow at Puck's face, which wore a sheepish grin.

"However shall I repay my lordship's kindness?" said Puck.

"How indeed," said Oberon, before he covered the Puck again, claiming him. Judging by Puck's enthusiastic gasps and low chanting of Oberon's name, he was happy to be claimed.


End file.
